Thread: Ardent

Chapter One
brave intrepid and then some
look out new world here we come

The hand of Sol had left the world. The Ardent’s sails shimmered from its touch. High sea breeze, cool and salty and seductive, wafts up, a reprieve from the hot summer air. An invitation from the Vast Sea herself. The Ardent was nothing if not ready to heed her call.

Dockworkers scrambled to get the last of the supplies onboard, sailors kissed their wives--or airport lovers--goodbye. Far below, the engine began to hum, it whirred as it was brought back to life. Two long, long years. The lines snapped, a little unexpectedly, dockmen and dockwives sent scattering for cover. The Ardent was free, and she was ready for her pilot’s guiding hand once more.

The ship does not actually "launch" until one of the pilots begins flying it. Please continue your posts in one of the Ardent sub-locations, not in the Ardent location. If you require a new area to be made, PM me. Dinner will be at nine, try not to kill each other before then.

The dinner bell rings. Crew should begin making their way to the Dining Room.

Dinner has ended and time has skipped forward about a month or so, after the ship's stop in Fort Rock. The ship is nearing the coast of Kerria and will arrive in perhaps a day or two. This is some of the final time you'll get prior to the adventure being in full swing, so take the time to flex your character muscles and play around while you can.

It is a hot summer night, and has rained recently. The ride has been mostly uneventful, no sea monsters this time.

An unexpectedly wintry wind strolls across the deck, a sign that the Ardent drifts ever closer to Kerria's north.

The ship stops briefly in An, a war-torn-and-rebuilt city in Kerria's north. Summer is beginning to end, and the continent's vast mountain range--the peaks of which reach far into the clouds above--can be seen even before the ship reaches the coast. The city is an unfriendly place, and the ship is in a hurry: the crew can briefly duck into the docks if they wish but will be assumed to have returned in the handful of minutes that it takes to resupply the ship.

Port of An, Autumn 1131

In the days of old, the port served as the hub of Tyrisian imperialism in the west. In the days of very old, it served as Kerria's grandest city. These days, it's mostly a commercial port. The old Tyrisian universities still litter the city's coastline, usually tucked away from views of the sea but a grand sight when approaching the air, as the Ardent does today. The ship coasts in to one of the more trusty refueling docks, a re-purposed church and lighthouse which now serves as a resting place for airships bound to the north. The docks are small, and largely private: there's some shops and inns along the cobblestone road parallel to the docks, and a bridge over the grand waterfall which connects the little outpost to the rest of the city. But the stop is planned to be a quick one, and most of the crew won't experience anything of the city besides the roar of the massive waterfalls lining it, and the telltale street babble echoing over its rocks.

The ship returns to the air, and begins to head further northwest, drawing ever closer to the vast expanse of mountains. In the distance, pockets of snow can be seen.

A strong wind blows in the first of the northernly snows, the grand mountains becoming less a thing of the distance and instead beginning to tower over the ship, piercing the skies themselves. It's difficult to tell through the growing amount of snow being blown across the ship, but a faint crack can be seen in the distant mountains: someone with a good eye could tell that a ship should be able to fit through them. In any case, the pilots seem to know to head for it. But the wind and the beginnings of hail within the next hour or two suggest that all pilots should be at the ready.